Mark Levinson
No. 336
Amplifiers

Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
mitchchavis
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: January 5, 2004

Bottom Line:

I find this amp to be the best all around amplifier for my tastes and with my system. I use it to power a pair of Magnepan 3.6's and my source components are a Levinson 390S CD player and a well Tempered Reference with a Clearaudio Discovery cartridge. I use the Levinson 38S preamp. I moved up about a year ago from the Levinson 335 and although they are very close in sound, the 336 provides a little more authority in driving the Magnepans(which need a lot of power to sound their best). There may be better amps out there but I haven't heard them.

As good as it gets. This amp will carve sonic reality for you in 3 dimensional space. UNREAL. This is the amp to own if you are an audiophile with the means to purchase it. Absolute heaven. You can not go wrong.

Not always, but to a large extent, you get what you pay for. For years I've been trying to get the performance of a 'big iron' amp at a fraction of the cost, believing that I was within ~90% of their performance. My recent home trial of the 336, and to a lesser extent the FPB300, was an eye opener. I am currently using a pair of Bryston 7B ST monoblocks driving Thiel CS7.2 loudspeakers. The 7Bs are very powerful, in fact they sound more open, and at ease driving my Thiel CS7.2s at high volumes then either the 336 or FPB300. What the 336 did in my system however was to create an extremely focused soundstage with the venue of the recording, instruments, and voices all solidly laid out in front of me, and separated entirely from the big Thiels. The 7Bs are nowhere near as convincing by comparison. Resoulution of recorded detail is amazing, layers of detail are unravelled that I hadn't previously heard. The bass is solid, deep, rythmic, and makes its presence felt through to the lower midrange. This gives the music a more realistic body and weight that is closer to live. Some have said this amp has a tube like sound, I can't attest to that, although it is smooth, harmonically rich, grain free, and extended at the the extremes. It exhibits a nice balance across the range that is more consistent then the Krell FPB300.

Don't get me wrong, the other amps I've had and currently own are all very good amps, each with their own strengths, and each represents good value. If you have the means, and desire, audition one of the new 33X series amps in your system. I think you'll find as I did that it raises the bar more then a notch or two.